


i will follow you into the dark

by preromantics



Series: Falling Stars AU Series [1]
Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-12
Updated: 2010-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which the stars are falling and the world is ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will follow you into the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ for softlyforgotten on 4/24/08. Lack of capitals was intentional.

brendon meets ryan just before dawn on the the forty-fourth day. he's not supposed to be outside, not at night - no one is. no one was allowed out past 6pm after the sixty-first day.

(in the morning, brendon's mom says, quiet in the kitchen, 'you have to make the most of what's left,' and then goes back to flicking matches against the stove, lighting the burners with feeble sparks.)

on the forty-fourth day there are twenty two stars in the sky and all of them glow green-red, staring down at brendon on his back, damp grass on his shoulders. the day after next, brendon will come back to the park and lay in the grass and count out twenty one stars, and then stare up at them, wishing he could stop them from falling.

the footsteps come first, soft padding on the grass and brendon jumps up - ready with a million explanations as to why he is outside past curfew, why he's sitting in the park that no one is allowed in because it's been marked as the place where the last star will fall. (brendon isn't supposed to know that, but he does.)

the owner of the footfall looks more lost than accusatory. he stares at brendon blankly, young hard angles and soft eyes. 'what are you doing here?' he asks.

brendon doesn't answer.

'this is where the last star is going to fall,' the boy says, staring up at the sky.

brendon doesn't say anything.

'there is nothing we can do to stop it.'

'i'm brendon,' brendon says. his mother taught him to be polite, back when 'future' was not a word banned from the dictionary. back when everyone actually had a future.

'i'm ryan,' the boy says, 'will you be here on the night everything ends, brendon?' he sounds like he is stuck in some soft other world. a dream.

brendon doesn't remember what it is like to dream, not since the two-hundredth day, not since the day all the scientists told the world 'this is the end.' not since his mother cried in the kitchen with her matches and his father went off to the city to see if he could help.

(nothing is going to help.)

brendon tells ryan, 'yes.'

they lay in the grass side by side with no words in the space between.

-

in the morning brendon asks his mother if anyone new moved around town lately. brendon's mother tells him that no one has the right to do something like move away from where they come from when they should be where they were on the last days of the world.

brendon knows that his mother is talking about his father, but he just says, 'thanks mom,' and goes upstairs to paint the old constellations on his bedroom ceiling. he was never an artist but thinks he would have liked to fall in love with one. brendon doesn't like to think about the love he will never have, though.

-

the next day brendon's mother tells him she is going to the city to be with his father. she says, he should come too, and die with them together.

brendon wishes his mother never had to become bitter and frank. brendon doesn't want to be in the city. brendon wants to lay in damp grass on day one, and let the last star fall on him.

'you'll be alone,' brendon's mother says.

brendon will have the strange boy, ryan, maybe. all he does is help his mom pack a little suitcase, and walk with her down the street to the bus that goes to the city.

they say goodbye but don't say forever.

  
-

brendon goes to the park to count the stars and make sure that there is one missing. he doesn't want there to be, but he has to make sure, anyways.

ryan is already there, he says, 'i saw it fall, the twenty second star, it was beautiful.'

'i wish i could have seen it fall,' brendon says back, lying down beside him.

'i wish that none of them had to fall,' ryan says, quiet.

-

seven more stars fall. it is the fourteenth day. brendon invites ryan over to his lonesome house.

'you painted andromeda wrong,' ryan tells him, looking up at brendon's bedroom ceiling. 'and the north star is facing south.'

brendon looks sheepishly away, 'sorry,' he says, because it seems appropriate.

ryan picks up a paint brush from the corner of brendon's room and stands on the furniture to paint the night sky. brendon watches him upside-down from the bed and thinks he always wanted to fall in love with an artist.

-

on the fifth day, brendon wakes up to ryan pressed against his back in his little twin bed and the sun is shining and no one is left on the block. brendon pretends the world isn't going to end and that when the night comes he and ryan might make love under the north star and all the constellations.

-

on the fourth day there are two stars left.

ryan says, 'i'm sorry i just met you,' and brendon doesn't understand.

brendon says, 'i'll never be sorry for you.'

he doesn't say, 'will you love me?' like he wants to, because that doesn't seem like something that should ever be said. later, though, ryan curls up against his side and takes his hand and points at the stars on brendon's ceiling. they almost glow because ryan is an amazing artist.

'i think that's where we will end up, up there with all the old stars. just me and you,' ryan says.

brendon leans over and looks in ryan's soft eyes and he kisses him, under the stars that should be real but aren't.

-

on the last day, ryan wears a tie. he wears sunday-church-slacks and a vest.

brendon wears his most comfortable jeans and a t-shirt.

ryan kisses brendon, and brendon kisses back and cries salty wet onto ryan's cheek. 'i would have fallen in love with you,' brendon says, honestly.

'you still have time,' ryan says.

they hold hands and lay in the wet grass alone in the park, and brendon says, 'i do love you,' when the last star falls down and everything turns to darkness.


End file.
